


Double Fantasy

by SegaBarrett



Category: Queen (Band), The Beatles (Band)
Genre: M/M, Period-Typical Homophobia, Story within a Story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-11
Updated: 2019-04-11
Packaged: 2020-01-11 07:15:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,027
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18425574
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SegaBarrett/pseuds/SegaBarrett
Summary: Freddie finds a journal at a yard sale.





	Double Fantasy

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: Unfortunately, I own neither the Beatles nor Queen.

“We’ve been to at least fifty of these,” Paul Prenter complained, sticking his hands in his pockets. “Anything you wanted, we already have, I’m sure. This is all third-rate junk we’re down to.” 

“Don’t be a doubter, Paul,” Freddie Mercury responded. “I mean, just look at... this... hideous clock. I could own it for the very low price of,” he turned it over, “Ten quid.” 

“Too much,” Paul scoffed. 

“Oh look, one of these,” Freddie declared, picking up a blue, leather bound journals from the desk. 

“You don’t journal, Freddie. I mean, do you want it for songs? We could just go to the...” 

“Paul, get over here,” Freddie hissed, and his manager walked over in a huff. “I need this. Go tell them I want this.” 

“Are you going to tell me why?” 

“When we get back to Garden Lodge. I’ll tell you then.” 

*** 

“Okay, what’s the big surprise then, Freddie?” 

Freddie, with a kind of awestruck glee, opened up the journal to the first page and pointed to the inscription. 

“Brian Samuel Epstein,” Paul read, “The Beatles’ manager?” 

“One and the same.” 

“At a rummage sale. That’s where all we managers end up.” 

But Freddie had already plopped down on his couch and began to read, biting on his lower lip. 

“You plan to share that, then?” Paul asked, taking a seat beside him. 

Freddie cleared his throat and began, “John and I arrived today in Barcelona - Barcelona!” Freddie paused to sing a note of his own song before continuing. “I must admit it was rather nerve wracking as we hadn’t spent much time together, away from the rest of the boys...” 

*** 

“I was holding my breath the entire descent,” John Lennon declared as he slung his bag over his shoulders, “The universe would have to ruin my holiday somehow, and a plane crash would do it for sure.” 

Brian Epstein shook his head, but he had been holding his breath as well for an entirely different reason. He wasn’t sure what he had been hoping for, inviting John away on holiday. He was already starting to second-guess and regret it, but to be fair to himself he hadn’t actually expected John to take him up on it. Now that he had, calling Brian’s bluff, Brian didn’t quite know what to do. John Lennon was as volatile an element as uranium. 

“Eppy?” John asked. “You planning to come back down to Earth and check in with the rest of us at some point?” 

Brian looked up at him and shook his head to clear it. 

“I’m here. I was just thinking about our hotel. I hope it’s all that I hope.” 

“I’m sure it is. I’m just glad to get away.” 

“Professional tip - don’t tell your wife that,” Brian told him, waving down a cab at the same time. “I have quite the visit planned for us. 12 days, we should be able to see most of the essential sites of Spain, though we also want to be sure that...” 

“Brian, you’re going to make me work on my holiday. Don’t do that.” 

“I’m not making any promises, John.” 

*** 

“The Spain trip,” Freddie declared, “Everyone wonders whether it was a great love affair.” 

Paul poured himself a drink. 

“Kind of a risk, if you ask me,” he said. “Opening yourself up to a client like that...” 

Freddie laughed. 

“Like you don’t know everything about me.” 

“That’s right. I know everything about you. Not the other way around.” 

Freddie let out a nervous laugh and scratched the back of his hand.

“Well, almost everything,” he said a second later before scooping up the journal again. “Our first day was warm and bright, and we went down to the beaches to relax...” 

“Well, we know what that means,” Paul said. 

“Shush. Let him tell it.” 

*** 

“You think I could bury you in this and just leave you here?” John mused, stepping over an immobile Brian as he peered at the Spanish horizon. 

“I’d rather you didn’t,” Brian replied. He had no interest in moving from the blanket he had set out. It was as if he had been holding the world up, like Atlas, and hadn’t realized it until he had taken it off for a few days. 

“Yeah, I think we need a manager, don’t we?” 

“I do hope I am a little more than that, John,” Brian ventured. John stopped in his tracks and cocked his head. 

“You are,” he said, but didn’t elaborate any further, opting instead to walk towards the water, the odd tranquil peace of the place overtaking them both at last. 

*** 

“It’s all very picturesque, but not really answering the question, is it?” Paul said. “I’ll bet nothing even happened at all. Epstein was just a lovesick puppy with no chance.” 

“I think he has a certain proper charm,” Freddie disagreed. “And... maybe he’ll get his man. This is the most riveting thing I’ve ever read. If more books were like this, I might pick one up a little more often.” 

“Yeah, it’s Anna Karenina,” Paul said sarcastically. 

“You just don’t believe in true love.” 

Freddie flipped through a few pages. 

“Spain is lovely, Spain is gorgeous, blah blah blah - oh, here we are dear. ‘I don’t know quite how to begin this entry, and I must ensure this never sees the light of day as it may spell disaster for myself and those I hold most dear.’ Sounds scandalous.” 

“Well, don’t leave us in suspense, then.” 

**** 

“You haven’t brought up the real reason you asked me on this holiday.” 

Brian whirled around, his face a white mask of panic, his heart squeezing within his chest. 

“And that is?” He inquired, trying for a brave face. It was always so hard to keep a brave face when he felt so windbattered from day to day. 

“That you’re clearly trying to get me into bed.” John’s voice wasn’t accusatory, not exactly, and his face wore the same tell-tale smirk that it always had when he was trying to drive Brian up the wall.

“Is that all you think it is?”

“Not all it is, no, but I think it’s part of it. I can’t blame you.” Brian watched as John examined himself in the room’s full-length mirror. “I would probably try and shag me, too, if I had the chance.”

Brian took a slow stride to close the gap. He wasn’t brave enough to reach out and touch him, or maybe he was just too professional to try. A million and one things could go wrong if he chose wrong, after all.

That was when John whirled around and pressed his lips to Brian’s.

Brian let out a tiny squeak, his hands jutting out in front of him in an almost defensive posture. Of all the things he had expected, this hand been nowhere on the list except within his dreams. His pulse began to quicken as he tried to suck down a breath in between John working against his lips. 

John pulled back and sat back, looking like the cat that had just eaten the canary. 

“Where did that come from?” Brian inquired breathlessly. 

John shrugged. 

“I don’t know, Brian. Don’t question it. Just let me do it.” He leaned in and again kissed the manager, being surprisingly gentle as he snaked a hand around his neck, up to his chin to cup his cheek. “You’re beautiful, Brian.”

He laid back down and pulled the blanket over them both, letting out a sigh.

“There’s things I think I want to do,” he mumbled sleepily, “But if I did…”

“You have time to decide,” Brian whispered back. “And if… you decide to, then no one ever has to know.”

“Someone would find out.”

“Not for a long, long while,” Brian replied. 

“Do you want to know a secret?” John quipped, falling slowly asleep.

***

“Is that all there is?” Paul asked.

“I hope not. What a letdown,” Freddie groused, flipping to the next page as he paced the room. 

“You want a drink, Freddie?”

“Yeah,” he replied and sat back down. “They’ve only got twelve days, why are they wasting so much time?”

Paul chuckled and went to the kitchen, returning with two glasses and a bottle of Stoli. He unscrewed the lid and shrugged.

“Maybe it felt like they had forever back then. Summer of love and all that.”

“Nah, this was ’63. It was certainly the summer, er, spring of something, though. I hope Eppy gets some in the end.” Freddie tipped back a drink. “I think I would like him.”

“I think you would, too,” Paul agreed.

 

Freddie smoothed over the next page, looking at the elegant writing of a man who wouldn’t make it another five years.

Did he know about that? Freddie wondered. Sometimes people can figure it out.

He cleared his throat and continued, “I never thought I would have the opportunity to spend as much time as this with John…”

***

“Well, a day left,” John declared, tossing a pair of pants lazily on top of the suitcase and making Brian cringe.

“You could try to be neater, you know.”

“And you could try to be straighter,” John fired back.

Brian put up his hands and took a few steps back, shaking his heads.

“The more things change, the more they stay the same,” he mused. He moved to take a seat on the bed, dragging a hand down his face. “How are you… about… the other day, I mean?”

“We don’t need to talk about it, Eppy. Is that what you queer types do about this kind of thing? Talk about it? Because I don’t think we should.”

He sat down on the bed next to Brian, putting one foot over the other. 

“You’re looking at me like you want to do something about it,” Brian mused. He thought about every possible way that this could all go horribly wrong.

John reached out and cupped his face, bringing him in for a kiss.

“I suppose we have time for all that, don’t we?” He chuckled. “Maybe we’ll get together when it’s… better. Safer. For us, you know. I mean like…” He kissed him again. “Public, like. Wouldn’t that blow people’s minds?”

“It would.”

John shifted around so that he was sitting with his legs on either side of Brian’s. He draped his arms around him and laid his head on his shoulder. 

“I wish this moment could last forever,” John whispered, and Brian just nodded. It had to pass eventually. Everything did.

***

“That’s the last of it,” Freddie said in a quiet voice. 

“That’s all there is, there is no more,” Paul mumbled. “You know, he died before it was legal to even be gay in England. Different time.”

“What do you think he would think of us? Now, I mean. What would he think of now?” Freddie asked, taking a seat and letting out a long sigh. “He could have gone to clubs until his eyes popped out of his head.”

“And end up with the new disease that’s killing everyone,” Paul replied wryly. “Great trade, there. We always end up at the bottom of the heap, don’t we?”

There was a long pause.

“We end up at the bottom of somewhere, darling,” Freddie retorted, picking up the journal and placing in on his bookcase. 

“I’ve got a few things I need to do,” Paul said, scrambling up, “I’ll be back in a few hours.”

Freddie leaned in and gave him a friendly kiss on the forehead.

“Hurry back.”

***

 **2017**

“I wanted you to have this.”

Adam Lambert was sitting in his dressing room, following the third London show on his tour with Queen, and he was covered in sweat and fruitlessly slapping a wet rag against his head.

And Brian May was handing him a rectangular-shaped box.

“What’s this?” Adam asked, playing with the tape tentatively. 

“It belonged to Freddie. For a while.”

Adam sucked in a breath and began to lift the top of the box, seeing a journal beneath it.

He flipped it open. 

“Brian Epstein?” he asked. “Really?”

Brian nodded.

“Really.”

Adam sat down on the couch and began to read.


End file.
